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• WS — Item 1 WORK SESSION STAFF REPORT Work Session Item No. 1 Date: July 23, 2012 To: City Council From: Michael Grochala Re: Charter Exempt Zones Background The City Charter Commission has requested a formal response from the City Council providing the Council's rationale for including exempt zones as part of the proposed Council Charter amendment rather than having it changed by ordinance. This request appears to originate from the Charter Commission's response to the Council amendment submitted to the commission in 2008. In 1993 the City Charter was amended, by ordinance, to establish three areas within the City that would be exempt from the public improvement provisions of Chapter 8 of the Charter. Instead those areas would be governed by the public improvement provisions of Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 429. These areas which surrounded the 35W interchange, 35E interchange and the Lake Drive/Hodgson Road intersection were identified as the city's primary economic development locations. Under the provisions of Chapter 429 the city can specially assess the cost of public improvement to benefitting properties. However the improvement process is not subject to the neighborhood petition process or referendum requirements of the charter. As proposed in the 2008 amendment and included in the 2012 City Council amendment the charter exempt zones are eliminated as part of a comprehensive rewrite of the Charter's Chapter 8. The overriding premise discussed in 2008 was that if the neighborhood petition process was refined and the election requirement eliminated than there was less importance placed on the exempt zones. In 2008 the Charter Commission was agreeable to amending the charter, by ordinance, to eliminate the exempt zones, but not the other amendment provisions. This appears to be the same case today. Staff and attorney Steve Bubul were present at the May 31, 2012 meeting and addressed this issue. As noted at the meeting the city submitted a comprehensive rewrite of the chapter and is not agreeable to a piecemeal amendment process. Removal of the exempt zones, absent other proposed changes, would result in the entire city being governed by the existing charter provisions. Given the repeated discussions to change the existing charter language it does not appear this would be in the best interests of the city.